Deus 2 Legend Equinox 800 Wild Target Testing

[longbow62]

I didn't think XP or Nokta/Makro could make a multi-frequency detector as good as the Equinox on the first go around. I have been proved wrong. I have hunted with two guys using the Deus II comparing targets. As I've mentioned before I can't tell any strengths of one over the other in my ground using the multi-frequency programs on dry ground. One of the guys also has the Legend, but I have not got to see it in action yet. He says it's very good.

[Denny]

Good write up. 
The test should have been done with the D2 using the 11 inch coil. 
  

 

[Jeff McClendon]

7 hours ago, Denny said:

Good write up. 
The test should have been done with the D2 using the 11 inch coil. 
  

 

I don’t have an 11” coil. They are not available for sale separately until at least October….

I am not going to buy another Deus 2 with an 11” coil just so I can make this test or any other appear to be more equal.

What aspect of this testing would have been improved if my Deus 2 was using an 11” coil?

Maybe I missed something that you noticed.

The only slight differences between the three detectors were Deus 2 was a little harder to ground balance and Deus 2 didn’t see as many targets as the other two detectors during the sweep of the gridded area. I stated in the write-up that most of the targets that made up that difference were shallower than the flagged targets.

I don’t think the 11” coil would have made ground balancing any easier in that highly mineralized dirt and the 9” coil had ample depth. I thought the Deus 2 did great.

[Steve Herschbach]

Nice report Jeff. I have reasons for thinking that the Equinox is about as good as things will get, and that new machines will be doing well roughly equaling it, which is essentially what is going on here. They all will have a tiny edge on some targets in some ground in some way, but most people objectively evaluating them are likely to find that on the vast majority of normal targets all three will get the job done. There are limitations here that all metal detectors face, and the simple truth is we are up against performance walls that are difficult, if not impossible, to surpass. So when anyone claims any one of these machines is so great that it makes the others irrelevant, they will have to excuse me for not taking them seriously beyond that point.

In my opinion if anyone gets real kudos in all this, it’s Nokta for coming so far in such a short time, producing a top performer that surpasses anything made by Garrett or First Texas. And for a bargain price at that. The D2? Well, seriously, costing what it does, you’d have to expect it’s going to do well, or XP would be in real trouble with the price point. I’ve got one, great detector, but some of the early rhetoric was overblown, to put it nicely.

Long story short nobody needs to defend or hype any one of these machines. They are all very capable detectors. Anyone that can’t do well with with one of these models needs to go back to detecting school, rather than blame the detector. We are fortunate to have not one, but three great options to choose from, all delivering good top tier performance.

[phrunt]

There is nothing better than having choices, each and every one of these detectors is obviously good so now people can choose which suits them best by features or attributes they like not having to worry one lags well behind the others in performance.

We are in a really good place for general purpose VLF's now so it's happy times. 

i agree about Nokta, what an achievement and they should be quite proud of themselves leaping well ahead of well established rusted on old detector manufacturers, hopefully they can do the same with their gold prospecting PI. 

[Denny]

14 hours ago, Jeff McClendon said:

I don’t have an 11” coil. They are not available for sale separately until at least October….

I am not going to buy another Deus 2 with an 11” coil just so I can make this test or any other appear to be more equal.

What aspect of this testing would have been improved if my Deus 2 was using an 11” coil?

Maybe I missed something that you noticed.

The only slight differences between the three detectors were Deus 2 was a little harder to ground balance and Deus 2 didn’t see as many targets as the other two detectors during the sweep of the gridded area. I stated in the write-up that most of the targets that made up that difference were shallower than the flagged targets.

I don’t think the 11” coil would have made ground balancing any easier in that highly mineralized dirt and the 9” coil had ample depth. I thought the Deus 2 did great.

Thanks jeff

I’m surprised the D2 picked up only 31 targets in your test. Do you see any difference in performance after updates.     

[Jeff McClendon]

I am not surprised. Me, Andy B. and Steve H. along with Chase and others have all noticed and reported that Deus 2 is just not really sensitive to extremely small targets either in air tests or especially in moderately to highly iron mineralized ground, that Equinox hits easily and that the Legend is really good at too. 

I dug enough of the obvious unflagged targets to get a good handle on what most were.....two shallow coin spills, several shallow pull-tabs, several crown bottle caps, etc. All three detectors were hitting those targets for sure.  I did dig two really small targets....one was an incredibly small piece of foil and another was a tiny piece of iron. Both were under 2 mm and were just under the surface. Deus 2 hit them if they were almost touching the coil. Equinox and Legend (I used the Legend to recover those two tiny ones) hit them in the ground so roughly 2" deep accounting for the grass.

For gold prospecting, this Deus 2 insensitivity kind of sucks. For coin, jewelry and relic hunting in trash of all sizes, this lack of sensitivity acts as a form of discrimination and is definitely a blessing in disguise and a good thing, compared to the Equinox which hits way too many smaller targets in that kind of situation. Digging 2mm and smaller bits of screen wire at relic sites all day with the Equinox is not fun.

Deus 2 was running 0.71. I don't have any experience with any other software version. Legend was running 1.07. Just did the update to 1.08 last night and I haven't remotely begun to see what it is like......since it is truly a massive update.

I tried to make this testing as fair as possible and well within the limits of what these detectors can do. I could have fabricated some extreme situation and made them all look bad........but I was not trying to make one detector look bad or another look incredible. I just wanted to give readers that are interested in these detectors, especially those that have similar ground mineralization, a good look at what they can do on normal depth (surface to 10") typical USA coin sized targets. 

[phrunt]

" I could have fabricated some extreme situation and made them all look bad "

Far too much of that goes on and its rather easy to do also.

[cudamark]

2 hours ago, Jeff McClendon said:

 

I tried to make this testing as fair as possible and well within the limits of what these detectors can do. I could have fabricated some extreme situation and made them all look bad........but I was not trying to make one detector look bad or another look incredible. I just wanted to give readers that are interested in these detectors, especially those that have similar ground mineralization, a good look at what they can do on normal depth (surface to 10") typical USA coin sized targets. 

Nice report! I wouldn't mind seeing what each of them can do on the real deep and/or iffy targets. I don't want to paint any of them as second rate either, but, in some areas (especially ones that have been hammered over the years) finding good items on the fringe of detection is important. Finding a machine that does the best at that can be a game changer. Naturally, site conditions will vary and one or more of them might be better under condition A, and another might be better under condition B. With enough feedback from various soil/sand conditions, we can make an intelligent choice in detector, coil, and settings for our hunting sites and conditions. Thanks, well done.?